Dance About Anything

Explore dance design and performance through 7 easy to follow tasks

Dance About Anything helps you understand the creative process for developing movement and dance around a theme. It also looks at how you can integrate dance with other subjects.

Your students will explore the dance-making process through 7 easy-to-follow tasks. The tasks take them from inspiration and choosing a theme to solving movement problems and making movement phrases. The culminating work involves dance design, revisions, and performance.

Introduction: The Role of Dance in Integrated Projects

Part I. Inspiration: From Selecting Topics to Creating Short Movement Phrases

• Chapter 1. Concept Task: Choosing a Topic
• Chapter 2. Investigation Task: Researching the Topic
• Chapter 3. Exploration Task: Identifying Important Aspects of the Topic

Part II. Dance Design: From Solving Movement Problems to Exhibition

• Chapter 4. Selection Task: Devising Movement Problems
• Chapter 5. Development and Refinement Tasks: Solving Movement Problems and Designing a Dance
• Chapter 6. Exhibition Task: Performing Completed Work and Accepting Final Critique

Part III. Integrated Projects: From Thematic Planning to Exhibition

• Chapter 7. Defining and Creating Integrated Projects: The Process Is the Process
• Chapter 8. Moving the Project Forward: A Time Line
• Chapter 9. Sparking Students' Interest: Effective Teaching, Facilitating, and Coaching
• Chapter 10. Evaluating Integrated Projects: The Big Picture

Part IV. Three Complete Themes and Integrated Projects

• Chapter 11. Cosmic Influences: Weather You Like It or Not
• Chapter 12. Community: Community Quilt
• Chapter 13. Prejudice and Human Rights: Anna and the King

• Glossary
• References
• About the Authors

Marty Sprague, MA, is a professional choreographer and performer with more than 29 years of experience in public dance education. She is the dance teacher at the Providence Academy of International Studies and artistic director of Chance to Dance.

Helene Scheff, RDE, has been a dance educator and administrator for 45 years in both the public and private sectors.

Susan McGreevy-Nichols is a national arts education consultant. She teaches part-time at California State University at Dominguez Hills. She taught at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1974 to 2002. She was the founder and director of the inner-city school's nationally recognized dance program in which more than 300 of the school's 900 students elected to participate.